In No. 24 of the *Novaya Rabochaya Gazeta* we encounter an amusing outburst concerning our description of the Dublin events[3]. It would hardly be worth responding to something amusing, if the liquidationist newspaper had not in the process arrived at an extremely important and instructive clarification for the workers. Judge for yourselves. We drew a distinction between England, in which, thanks to the existence of common foundations of political freedom, the demand by workers for reform of coalition legislation (laws on freedom of association) has quite serious and actual significance—and Russia, where such a demand is an unserious, empty, liberal phrase, but where reforms like insurance are actually achievable, given the existing foundations.

The liquidationist does not understand this distinction. Let us clarify it for him with two questions: 1) Why is a bourgeois-democratic revolution impossible in England? A revolution for political freedom? 2) Why in Russia, at the end of the last century, for example, in 1897, were partial reforms of factory laws entirely possible and partial demands by workers in this area were contested by no one, whereas all the Marxists of that time considered demands for partial political reforms to be liberal deception?

By pondering these questions, the liquidationist may guess at the reasons for the different attitude toward various reforms in Russia and in England.

And now to the important clarification by the liquidationist newspaper:

"But," it writes (No. 24, p. 2, col. 1), "if for a partial change in insurance legislation these foundations are not needed" (i.e., the common foundations of political freedom), "then why are they necessary for a partial change in the law of March 4, 1906 and individual articles of the decree of December 2, 1905 on strikes?"

We congratulate and thank [you] for your candor! You have hit precisely the mark: "a partial change in the laws of March 4, 1906 and December 2, 1905"{11} is entirely possible without anything general! Excellent.

Only… do you know what?... only such a "partial change in the laws of March 4, 1906 and December 2, 1905" is called not "freedom of association," but Octobrist deception of the people.

The writers of the *Novaya Rabochaya Gazeta* have acknowledged precisely what needed to be proved.

By "freedom of association," with which liberals and liquidationists treat you, one must understand:

"A partial change in the laws of March 4, 1906 and December 2, 1905."

Once again we thank [you] for your candor. Let us record it thus: the fundamental, central, main, primary and so forth slogan of the liquidationists consists, by their own admission, in the demand for a partial change in the laws of March 4, 1906 and December 2, 1905.

Is it not brilliant how the *Novaya Rabochaya Gazeta* has refuted its own affiliation with the liberals?

It is no wonder that the liquidationists have been called social-democratic Octobrists!

*Pravda Truda* No. 3, September 13, 1913. Signature: N—k

Printed from the text of the newspaper *Pravda Truda*